Throwbacks: DJ Unk - Walk It Out

Before it was a nationwide epidemic in the fall of 2006, Unk’s debut single "Walk It Out" spent six months strictly tearing up the Atlanta airwaves. It hit regional radio in March 2006, courtesy of Big Oomp Records.

Written by Montay Humphrey, Anthony Platt, and Howard Simmons, the track anchored Unk's debut album Beat'n Down Yo Block!. The production is pure snap-era minimalism. You get a hollow synth loop, heavy 808s, and Unk barking dance instructions. Hip-hop purists love to look back at the mid-2000s dance craze and roll their eyes, but the raw bounce of this record is bulletproof. The kicks literally rattle your chest. That regional buzz finally spilled over in September. By November, it was the number one urban single in the country, pulling over 6,500 spins and reaching an audience of 55 million on its way to peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Big Oomp and KOCH Records had a monster on their hands. The 2007 official remix stretched the track out to four verses, keeping the club run alive well into the next year. Check it out below.